Mast climbers helped to build Hyvinkää's new hospital in Finland

HUS - The Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa invested 63 million euros in a major Hyvinkää hospital expansion project. 15 mast climbers helped to complete the building’s plastering work.

Hyvinkää Hospital

Hyvinkää Hospital is an on-call maternity hospital, offering many specialized medical services. The hospital has a combined emergency department that provides round-the-clock health centre emergency services for the city of Hyvinkää, and night emergency services for other municipalities in the area.

Hyvinkää Hospital (Hyvinkään sairaala, HYS) is located 3 km Hyvinkää city centre. It is part of the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (HUS). Hyvinkää Hospital has 238 care places, employs 1165 people and serves five municipalities.

Expansions

The hospital was built in 1975 and has since undergone several extensions. During the initial expansion phase, the number of intensive care units was increased from eight to fourteen. Next, the hospital received a new medicine and surgery department, followed by children and youth care department. As a result of this, the intenscive care units for infants and children was moved to the youth care section of the hospital.

Current expansion project

The Municipality of Hyvinkää, Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) built a new hospital and parking house at the Hyvinkää Hospital site.

The expansion of Hyvinkää Hospital was contracted to PEAB Oy. The construction, valued at 31 million euros, is expected to be completed in August, 2018. The building rising next to the hospital will be used by for HUS's specialist healthcare and the city's primary health care center. The total size of the project is 27 156.5m² and the estimated total costs are projected at 63.9 million euros.

The building and plastering project

The great design of this modern hospital expansion building was crafted by Arkkitehtistudio Kujala & Kolehmainen and Arkkitehdit Kontukoski. The main contractor for the project was PEAB. The sub-contractor responsible for the plastering work of the Hyvinkää Hospital expansion building is Vakka-Suomen Rappauspalvelu (=VSRP) .

The plastering contract included a lot of façade work and in several phases.

First the thick insulation elements were fastened to the walls with the help of mast climbers. Then several layers of net, plastering and colour to finish off the facades. A total of 15 mast climbers were used for the whole process.

The plastering work stages were:

• Fastening of insulation elements
• 1st basecoat/plaster layer
• Base screed fastening
• 2nd basecoat/plaster layer
• Primer/bonding agent
• Colored finishing coat
• Additional border painting

VSRP chose mast climbers

The plastering contractor, VSRP, wanted to use mast climbers for the hospital plastering project as they have been proven to be much easier to work on than scaffolding.

Mast climber advantages in plastering work

After several years of experience in plastering work, VSRP’s worksite manager, Jyri Julin, had some thoughts about MCWPs:

Mast climbers provide an easier way of performing plastering work. Compared to scaffolding, which is our secondary method, I prefer mast climbers, since they provide a better plastering finish, less borders, full access to work surfaces and stepless moving up and down while working on the facade. And of course, the work ergonomics is better. Jyri Julin commented the use of mast climbers.